843 research outputs found
Perceptions of Intellectual Property:A Review
In “The right to good ideas: patents and the poor”, The Economist depicts two driving forces in the contemporary discourse on IP and globalization. The one is interested in advancing the knowledge economy, an approach based on the belief that knowledge is the driving factor behind economic growth. The other resides on a belief that IP is a major means to advance the process of globalization. While the former is strongly motivated by new economic growth theory, as for example advanced by Stanford professor Paul Romer, the latter is based on typical anti-globalization arguments, such as for example the position that the IP system helps multinational companies to build up monopolies to the detriment of the poor, drives small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and local business in developing countries out of business and increases prices for consumer products, be they pharmaceuticals or software. The purpose of this review is to help understand the current discourse on intellectual property, to grasp underlying themes, assumptions and connotations associated with the term “IP”, so as to identify paths leading to a more comprehensive understanding of IP and the opportunities and pitfalls it may provide
Nearly optimal robust secret sharing
Abstract: We prove that a known approach to improve Shamir's celebrated secret sharing scheme; i.e., adding an information-theoretic authentication tag to the secret, can make it robust for n parties against any collusion of size δn, for any constant δ ∈ (0; 1/2). This result holds in the so-called “nonrushing” model in which the n shares are submitted simultaneously for reconstruction. We thus finally obtain a simple, fully explicit, and robust secret sharing scheme in this model that is essentially optimal in all parameters including the share size which is k(1+o(1))+O(κ), where k is the secret length and κ is the security parameter. Like Shamir's scheme, in this modified scheme any set of more than δn honest parties can efficiently recover the secret. Using algebraic geometry codes instead of Reed-Solomon codes, the share length can be decreased to a constant (only depending on δ) while the number of shares n can grow independently. In this case, when n is large enough, the scheme satisfies the “threshold” requirement in an approximate sense; i.e., any set of δn(1 + ρ) honest parties, for arbitrarily small ρ > 0, can efficiently reconstruct the secret
Two Empirical Regimes of the Planetary Mass-Radius Relation
Today, with the large number of detected exoplanets and improved
measurements, we can reach the next step of planetary characterization.
Classifying different populations of planets is not only important for our
understanding of the demographics of various planetary types in the galaxy, but
also for our understanding of planet formation. We explore the nature of two
regimes in the planetary mass-radius (M-R) relation. We suggest that the
transition between the two regimes of "small" and "large" planets, occurs at a
mass of 124 \pm 7, M_Earth and a radius of 12.1 \pm 0.5, R_Earth. Furthermore,
the M-R relation is R \propto M^{0.55\pm 0.02} and R \propto M^{0.01\pm0.02}
for small and large planets, respectively. We suggest that the location of the
breakpoint is linked to the onset of electron degeneracy in hydrogen, and
therefore, to the planetary bulk composition. Specifically, it is the
characteristic minimal mass of a planet which consists of mostly hydrogen and
helium, and therefore its M-R relation is determined by the equation of state
of these materials. We compare the M-R relation from observational data with
the one derived by population synthesis calculations and show that there is a
good qualitative agreement between the two samples.Comment: accepted for publication in A&
Engaging the Oppressor
It was June 1995, one year after South Africa’s first democratic elections brought anti-Apartheid activist and guerilla fighter Nelson Mandela to power. After being barred from the World Cup in 1987 and 1991, South Africa was hosting the world Rugby championship. Its national team, the Springboks, a symbol of white Afrikaner domination, had made it to the final round, fielding a lone black player, Chester Williams. Mandela had spent twenty-seven years in prison, many of them under brutal conditions on the beautiful but isolated Robben Island, where race classifications dictated even the food rations he received – as a black man, he received one ounce less meat and a half-ounce less sugar than Indian and colored prisoners. In a now- famous gesture that June day, Mandela walked onto the field at Johannesburg’s Ellis Stadium at half-time wearing the Springbok uniform, and when the South African team won the championship, he returned to the field and raised his green cap in a victory gesture. The message was clear: there is a place for everyone in the new South Africa, former oppressor and formerly oppressed. We will rebuild this country together
Fault Detection for Systems with Multiple Unknown Modes and Similar Units
This dissertation considers fault detection for large-scale practical systems with many nearly identical units operating in a shared environment. A special class of hybrid system model is introduced to describe such multi-unit systems, and a general approach for estimation and change detection is proposed. A novel fault detection algorithm is developed based on estimating a common Gaussian-mixture distribution for unit parameters whereby observations are mapped into a common parameter-space and clusters are then identified corresponding to different modes of operation via the Expectation- Maximization algorithm. The estimated common distribution incorporates and generalizes information from all units and is utilized for fault detection in each individual unit. The proposed algorithm takes into account unit mode switching, parameter drift, and can handle sudden, incipient, and preexisting faults. It can be applied to fault detection in various industrial, chemical, or manufacturing processes, sensor networks, and others. Several illustrative examples are presented, and a discussion on the pros and cons of the proposed methodology is provided. The proposed algorithm is applied specifically to fault detection in Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. Reliable and timely fault detection is a significant (and still open) practical problem in the HVAC industry { commercial buildings waste an estimated 15% to 30% (41.61B annually) of their energy due to degraded, improperly controlled, or poorly maintained equipment. Results are presented from an extensive performance study based on both Monte Carlo simulations as well as real data collected from three operational large HVAC systems. The results demonstrate the capabilities of the new methodology in a more realistic setting and provide insights that can facilitate the design and implementation of practical fault detection for systems of similar type in other industrial applications
Paradigmatic Frames from British Colonization to Today, and Beyond
This paper offers a template for understanding and analyzing racialization as
a paradigm. Further, the template is applied to the North American case – an
important one because it has endured and spread across the globe despite the
enormous weight of scientific evidence against it. The fallacy of race (and in
particular the North American origin Anglo variant) endures for two reasons.
First, social agents seeking to gain or maintain power and control over
paradigm-relevant resources benefit from reinvesting in pseudoscientific
racial paradigms. Second, new science proving the fallacy of race is ignored
because ignoring new paradigmatic science is in fact the way normal science
operates. Thus, a paradigmatic analysis of race may help to explain why
current social science approaches to the demise of racial thought may be
ineffective
Boolean Routing on High Degree Chordal Ring Networks
Over the past twenty-five years, the telecommunication field has evolved rapidly.
Telephone and computer networks, now nearly ubiquitous, provide access to voice, data
and video services throughout the world. As networking technologies evolve and
proliferate, researchers develop new traffic routing strategies.
The problem of routing in a distributed system has been investigated and issues
concerning Boolean routing schemes have been considered. All compact routing
techniques minimise time and space complexity. A good routing algorithm optimises the
time and space complexity and a routing algorithm that has O(1) time complexity and
O(log n) space complexity for high degree chordal ring has been found.
A Boolean Routing Scheme (BRS) has been applied on ring topology and regular
chordal ring of degree three. It was found that the regular chordal ring of degree three can be represented geometrically. the regular chordal ring of degree three has been
categorised into two categories; the first is the regular chordal ring of degree three that
satisfies the following formula n mod 4 = 0 and the second other is n mod 4≠0, where n
is the number of nodes that the graph contains. A BRS that requires O(log n) bits of
storage at each node, O(1) time complexity to compute a shortest path to any destination
for the regular chordal ring of degree three and Ө(log n) bits of storage at each node.
O(1) time complexity to compute a shortest path to any destination for the ring
topologies has been shown.
The BRS has been applied on chordal ring of degree six. it has been found that
the chordal ring of degree six can be represented geometrically and the representation
would be in three dimensions (in the space). Very little is known about routing on high
degree chordal rings. A BRS that requires O(log n) bits of storage at each node ,and
0(1) time complexity to compute a shortest path to any destination for the chordal ring
of degree six topologyhas been shown. The chordal ring 0(27;9;3) has been considered
as a case to apply BRS
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